The Forward Day by Day Meditation for September 8, 2013

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SUNDAY, September 8 16 Pentecost

Luke 14:25-33. Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.

Somehow I’d managed to spend the first couple of decades of my life in the church glossing over this passage from Matthew, but one Sunday it showed up in the lectionary and called me up short—hate my family? My life?

In first-century Middle-Eastern context, the word translated “hate” didn’t bear the same baggage we assign to it. To hate one’s family (or oneself) meant something more like a disconnection from allowing family or past to define one’s current self. Essentially it meant that your past experiences, allegiances, and genetics didn’t need to define who you are.

Following Jesus is not an easy task. It is something that, if wholeheartedly engaged, will change your whole life, realign your priorities and relationships, and upset whatever identity you've built for yourself. I wonder how willing we really are to put Christ first, to loosen our grasp on our own goals and ambitions and follow a path that is seldom comfortable and often unclear. And yet this is the relationship to which we are called.